Friday Five: Sonny Knight and the Lakers, Taj Raj, and more new Minnesota music videos

Sonny Knight and the Lakers are getting ready to release their first live album (Publicity photo)

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Happy Friday! If we must be tethered to our computers on such a beautiful summer day, we should at least spend some of our time watching music videos. Here’s a handful of the best and brightest to emerge from the Minnesota music scene this week, which should get you sailing toward the weekend in style…

Sonny Knight and the Lakers

With a new double-LP live album due out June 23 (pre-order here; the first 300 copies come on orange vinyl), Sonny Knight and the Lakers released this live video of their performance of “When You’re Gone.” The new record, Do It Live, was recorded over a two-night stand at the Dakota Jazz Club in December 2014.

Taj Raj

Hey, you know what’s happening tomorrow night, June 13, at Icehouse? Taj Raj are releasing their excellent new album, that’s what. Get a taste for the understated beauty of Night Speech with our Song of the Day download and this video for the single “Dreams of Flight, Part 1,” shot by Colin Kopp.

Matt Latterell

Speaking of tender-hearted singer-songwriters with new albums on the way, Taj Raj fans would do well to check out this forthcoming release from Matt Latterell, who also plays guitar around town in bands like Zoo Animal and Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles. His long-in-the-works new full-length, Phase & Field, is due out this fall.

Rank Strangers

Maybe it’s just the strange mash-up of 1960s cartoons, commercials, and other throwback imagery that Rev K pasted together to create this video, but I can’t listen to this Rank Strangers track without thinking that it sounds like a lost track from the soundtrack to The Point. Dig it.

DKO

Fresh off the release of an album on Anticon with Dosh, the ever-prolific multi-instrumentalist and producer Jon Davis, a.k.a. Ghostband, is back at it with another new project, DKO. The band features Davis on bass and bass clarinet, John C.S. Keston on Rhodes and synth, and Graham O’Brien on drums. Their debut album, Absinthe Referent, is out now.